


Promises That I Made

by Walutahanga



Series: The Arrow of the Inland Sea [2]
Category: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea - Ursula K. Le Guin (Short Story), Arrow (TV 2012), The Birthday of the World and Other Stories - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Pregnancy, Relationship Negotiation, Sedoretu, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shado, Oliver and Slade are involved on the island, but they're not a real sedoretu. It's not like they made any promises to one another. Until Shado and Slade make a mistake that will have all three reassessing their relationship and may just change the shape of the future. </p><p>(Or, the one in which babies do in fact make everything better).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises That I Made

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate version of my Arrow/sedoretu fusion fic 'Shoulda Woulda Coulda'. Oliver and Shado are Morning Moiety while Slade and Sara are Evening. 
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with sedoretu, details can be found here: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sedoretu. To give a brief summary, marriages are made up of four people; two men and two women. There must be one man and one woman of the Evening moiety, and one man and one woman of the Morning moiety. Members are expected to form sexual relationships with those of the opposite moiety while maintaining a platonic relationship with the person of their own moiety.

They know they’re screwed when Shado starts throwing up.

The first time is when she and Oliver are skinning rabbits for dinner. She suddenly drops her kill and scrambles to vomit into some ferns.

“What was that?” Oliver says. He’s thinking food poisoning, flu, or a million and one other possibilities they’re woefully ill equipped to handle.

“No idea,” Shado croaks, wiping her mouth.

The next day it happens again while they’re down at the river, which is when Oliver starts to get a clue.

“You couldn’t be…”

“Don’t say it.”

“You and Slade are being careful, right?” He and Slade haven’t been careful, but it’s not like either of them can knock each other up. It's one of the conveniences of having an attractive Evening man around who isn't averse to screwing Oliver's brains out so long as Oliver doesn't annoy him too much. He'd felt a bit sorry for Shado who doesn't have an Evening woman around to do the same thing for her, and therefore has to be extra careful when she's with Slade. 

“How?” Shado says dryly. “There’s a shortage of condoms on the island, if you haven't noticed.”

“But you guys haven't been…” Oliver makes a complicated gesture, unwilling to articulate or even think about his Moiety sister’s sexual practices. “…you know… all the way.. _._ ”

“No.” Shado pauses a beat before adding: “Usually not."

"Usually not or never?"

"A few times. But he always pulls out in time." Shado pauses another beat, looking as embarrassed and defensive as he's ever seen her. If this were almost any other situation, he'd think it was hilarious. "Except once, which was my fault. I was the one who put my -"

"And going to stop you right there." Oliver rubs his face. "Maybe you're not pregnant. Maybe you're just sick." 

"Maybe." Shado looks like she doesn't believe it.

* * *

Shado endures another week of throwing up before she and Oliver come to the conclusion that either it's an immaculate conception, or that Slade's swimmers are every bit as much over-performers as he is. 

"It's not just that," Shado tells Oliver in the woods. They've been spending a lot of time there recently, away from Slade's too-sharp eyes. Slade had given them a look this morning as they left, like he suspected they were up to something and was trying to work out if it was worth the effort of finding out or not. Shado continues: "My sense of smell is sharper, and my nipples are sore all the time, and I think they changed color..." 

Oliver grimaces, partly because he didn't need to know that, and partly because this was really terrible news. 

"So not food poisoning, then?" 

"No." 

"Crap."

"Yes." 

They're silent a moment. 

"Is there a way to get rid of it?” Oliver says at last. He doesn’t know her views on this subject but figures this is a big enough problem he doesn’t have to be delicate. “With herbs or something?”

“Probably." Shado runs a tired hand through her hair. "But I don’t know which ones, or what quantities, or even if they grow on the Island.”

The more Oliver thinks about this, the more he realises how utterly screwed they are. He knows nothing about childbirth, and he’s willing to bet Slade doesn’t either. There’s no access to medical care, no option of a c-section if things go wrong, no drugs to dull the pain, and no antibiotics to stave off infection. And if by some miracle Shado comes through it okay, what the hell are they going to do with a baby?

"The first three months are delicate," Shado says at last. "Perhaps I will lose it." 

He doesn't believe it, and looking at her - small and scared - he knows she doesn't believe it either. It's just what she needs to think at the moment. 

"You're right," he says. "There's no point in panicking just yet. Are you going to tell Slade?”

She nods resignedly. 

“He deserves to know.” 

* * *

Slade does not take it well. He stares at Shado for a few seconds, then walks out of the plane and into the forest, ignoring her calling for him to come back.

“He just needs time to think,” Oliver says reassuringly, though he’s angry at Slade for his reaction. This is as much his fault as Shado’s, and Shado needs reassurance right now, not the asshole that they know and occasionally want to smack in the head.

Slade doesn’t come back the rest of the day, and Oliver and Shado eat dinner in silence. Afterwards, she crawls into bed with him, like Thea used to do. 

“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispers, and his heart aches for her. He holds her as she cries, pressing a brotherly kiss into her hair and whispering nonsense that everything would be okay. “I want to be strong for him,” Shado says. “But I’m not and I can’t.”

Oliver rubs her back absently. He can see why Slade is angry. The guy is all about survival. It’s why he liked Shado so much and gave Oliver such a hard time. This pregnancy is a disaster in the making, and right now he’s probably cursing the day he ever met either of them.

 _Bastard,_ Oliver thinks, and is surprised by the depth of anger he feels on Shado’s behalf.

“You’re not alone,” Oliver tells her. “No matter what happens, you have me.”

She gives him a watery smile.

“Really?”

“Really. My mum could show up in a private jet tomorrow, with a luxury mini-bar and a five course meal, and if she didn’t agree to bring you along, I’d tell her to go straight back to Starling City.”

Shado hiccups and giggles.

“What about a hot shower?”

“Oh, if there’s a hot shower, you’re screwed. I’m totally taking the hot shower.”

It’s not that funny, but she laughs herself stupid, and seeing her laugh makes him laugh, and it’s a while before they can stop giggling. 

“You’re a good Moiety brother, Oliver,” she says at last, head resting on his shoulder. It's weird but nice, holding her like this. Different from how he'd share a bed with Slade or an Evening woman. There's none of the tension of when sex is a factor, just body heat and the comfortable knowledge of another person within reach. It reminds him of being small and tucked into his parents' bed; safe and warm and completely sheltered from the world. 

“I’m glad you think so," he tells her. "Because you’re stuck with me now.” 

* * *

Slade is back the next day, carrying a bunch of wildflowers. Oliver has to look twice to make sure he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing.

Slade holds the flowers out to Shado.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have run off. I needed to think.”

“You were angry,” Shado says, a little stiffly. “I understand.”

“No, that’s not it. I ran off because I was terrified. I love you, and this could kill you.”

Shado’s gaze snaps from the wildflowers to Slade.

“W-what?”

“I said this could kill you. We don’t have any doctors or medicine –”

“No, the other thing. Before that.”

“I love you.” Slade pauses, frowning. He looks faintly puzzled. “Surely you knew that?”

Oliver gives up all pretense of not listening and surges to his feet.

“I’m just gonna –” He grabs the bow. “Back later. Bye.”

Neither of them seem to notice him leaving. Down at the river, he tries to shoot a few birds and fails miserably. He can’t stop replaying Slade’s words in his head. _I love you._

Oliver had known that Slade cared about Shado, just as he cared about Oliver, but he was always going on about keeping a clear head and not getting distracted. Oliver had assumed that their activities were just a way to pass the time for Slade; fun, but not an emotional investment. It wasn't like they were a real sedoretu or had made any promises to one another. Except apparently Slade is in love with Shado, and probably has been the entire time.

If Slade loves Shado, then how does he feel about Oliver? 

Oliver tries to work out what answer he wants, but can’t identify anything other than a panicked urge to run, just like when Laurel brought up moving in with her and Tommy. He’s self-aware enough to be bitterly amused. In running from Laurel and Tommy he’d ended up with an Evening man and Morning woman he literally cannot get away from. Not only are Slade and Shado the only other people on the island, they're also perfectly capable of tracking Oliver down and dragging him back to camp.

It’s stupid really. Oliver had always known if they never got off the island, Shado and Slade were _it_. But somehow Slade putting an emotional slant on it is awakening that old sense of being hunted. 

He spends a few hours cycling between working himself into a panic and talking himself down again. When he returns to camp, Shado and Slade have clearly come to an understanding. (Several times from the state of Slade’s bed). Shado is smiling like she can’t stop, and Slade keeps looking at her.

“Catch anything?” Shado asks Oliver.

“No.” Oliver puts the bow away and settles beside the fire, the opposite side from Slade, ready to swiftly change the subject or make a hasty exit if Slade looks like he's going to bring out the ‘l’ word again. Slade, however, pays him no attention. He only has eyes for Shado.

Oliver slowly relaxes, but mixed with his relief is a bit of indignation. So Slade is in love with Shado, but not Oliver? He has to laugh at himself. An hour ago he’d been shitting himself at the prospect of an emotional commitment and now he’s annoyed it didn’t happen. You'd think he'd have learned from Laurel and Tommy.

* * *

The next few days are strange. Slade treats Oliver as he always has, and Oliver’s feelings go from relief to wounded pride to irritation to hurt. He’s annoyed that Shado is clearly Slade’s first preference – Oliver was here _first_ – and jealous of the attention, and angry because this has created a barrier in the easy friendship between him and Shado. They used to be able to talk about anything (even things that Oliver would have preferred not to talk about) and now there’s a white elephant in the room no one is acknowledging.

He’s so annoyed he shrugs off Slade’s next invitation for sex. If Slade wants Shado, he can _have_ her.

Oliver regrets it half an hour later when he’s getting restless and Slade is just sitting there, polishing a sword like he couldn’t care less than Oliver turned him down. It was silly really, Oliver thought, stealing a glance at Slade’s broad unhurried hands. He'd wanted the attention then rejected it when he had it. Story of his life.

“I changed my mind,” he says and Slade grins, putting the sword away. 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you recently, kid,” he says later when Oliver is underneath him and too distracted to get annoyed. “You don’t usually sulk this much.”

“I don’t sulk.” Oliver clutches at the small of Slade's back, trying to get him to move faster. Slade ignores the hint and continues at his own sedate pace, probably with the precise intent of driving Oliver out of his mind. He does that a lot. 

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Afterward, Slade doesn’t kick him out of bed straight away and Oliver watches Slade doze on his front, tracing shapes in the muscles of Slade’s back.

Did it really matter how Slade felt about him? It wasn’t like there was any other option for either of them, and it wouldn’t change how things were between them. They’d still be allies, still have each other’s back, still have amazing sex that would be a lot more amazing if there was the possibility of a shower or a change of bedsheets afterward. 

“I can hear you thinking from here,” Slade says sleepily.

“Just thinking about Shado.”

Slade is silent a moment.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve thought on that as well.”

Oliver feels like an idiot because what does it matter what Slade feels for him? It’s a small, petty concern when they’re looking at losing Shado, the heart of their…whatever they are. 

“It might be okay,” he says, not believing it even as he says it. “I mean, women have been doing it for millions of years.”

“Do you know the statistics of women giving birth without medical help?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

Slade rolls over to curl a warm arm about Oliver’s waist.

“I guess this is one mess I can’t blame you for,” he says. “This one’s on me.”

“Shado doesn’t feel that way.”

“She should, if she had any sense.” Slade’s fingers thread through Oliver’s hair. “But then I never credited either of you with a lot of sense. You chose me, after all.”

There’s bitter unhappiness to his voice. Oliver leans in to kiss it away.

“Best thing to happen to us on the island,” he says.

“Not a high standard there,” Slade says, but he’s smiling. 

* * *

With Shado’s condition, their lives take on a restrained urgency. Slade starts scavenging Fyer’s camp again, even though though they’ve already found everything of value. Shado redoubles her efforts to grow her father’s herbs near the plane.

“Labour is only half the battle,” she tells Oliver. “After that, there’s infection. The herbs will be our best defense.”

She also starts teaching him more than he ever wanted to know about the female body. Oliver did not _ever_ need to know about placentas and umbilical cords and tearing. If an Evening woman washed up on shore tomorrow, he wouldn’t be able to touch her because Shado’s ruined him for sex with women. 

“Why are you telling me this?” He says, still traumatized by her instructions regarding the placenta.

“Because you’re going to be delivering this baby.”

“Me?!”

“I can’t deliver my own baby and I’m not letting Slade do it.”

“Why not? He’s seen all your… bits before.”

“Exactly. There are some things I’m not prepared to let him see happen to my body. This is one of them.”

Oliver whines but gives in with bad grace, if only because Shado’s perfectly capable of kicking his ass and the pregnancy hormones are making her tetchy.

Pregnancy, they’re all discovering, is a real bitch. Shado hasn’t had any weird cravings (thank god, because they couldn’t fill them anyway) but can spend half the morning crouched over a bucket as her body tried to bring something up from her empty stomach.

“It’s a waste of food,” she apologises.

“Don’t worry about it,” Slade says. Slade, Oliver has noticed, is very gentle with Shado these days. He always was a little softer on her than Oliver – probably partly because she was a woman and partly because she could already meet his ridiculously high standards – but nowadays there’s barely a cross word out of him. He watches her and Oliver could read the fear in his eyes. Oliver shares it.

He's just started to come to terms with (or at least not in horrified denial of) playing midwife, when the motion sensor picks up movement. Things get a little crazy after that, and their baby problem gets shoved to the back-burner. 

* * *

Oliver is startled by the surge of emotion when he sees Sara on the freighter. Relief is there, and hope that something can be salvaged from this mess, but also something else deeper and purer. He’s just glad to see _her_.

It’s that emotion that makes him grab her hand and drag her after him when Shado and Slade stage the swap. She only resists for a second, and then her hand is clinging tight about his, slick with sweat and grime and surprisingly strong. ( _He always liked strong women._ )

When they stop running, Shado eyes Sara. 

“Who’s this?”

“She’s – ah –” Oliver tries to think of a way to tell this without making himself look like a prick. “She was on the boat with me.”

Shado’s forehead wrinkles slightly. 

“You told me your sedoretu was incomplete.” Which was one way of saying that he'd run away with Laurel's Evening sister, rather than tell her and Tommy he didn't want to move in with them. 

“She’s Laurel’s sister,” Oliver explains miserably. "I mean, Laurel's mother's wife's daughter. So her sister, but not her blood sister." 

“But –” Shado looks between them as she gets it. “Oh, Oliver.” The disappointment in her voice reminds him of his mother.

Sara is looking a bit uncomfortable as well. 

“Hi,” she says, holding out her hand to Shado. “I didn’t catch your name.”

Shado looks at the hand, and looks at Sara.

“I’m Shado,” she says coolly, and walks away. Sara looks as if she’d been slapped.

“She doesn’t like me.”

“She just…” Oliver really doesn’t know how to fix this. Shado puts a big deal on honor and commitment. “She’ll come round. We were different people back then.”

“I hope so.” Sara watches Shado walk away, and Oliver is disconcerted to realise that she’s _checking her out_. There's nothing wrong with it - Sara is Evening, Shado is Morning - but Oliver finds it disturbing all the same. “The big guy… he’s Evening?”

“Yes.” Oliver pauses a moment and decides to come out and say it. “I’m sleeping with him, and so is Shado.”

“Oh.” He can see the wheels turning in Sara's mind. “So it’s committed then?”

Oliver starts to automatically deny it, then thinks about it. He’d told Shado she wasn’t alone, and they have a baby on the way. You don’t get much more committed than that.

“Yes, it is,” he says at last, wondering when the hell that happened.

Sara stares at him, then her mouth quirks in a smile. She makes a strange gulp of laughter.

“Ollie, you ran away with me to _avoid_  sedoretu with Tommy and Laurel.”

“The irony hasn’t escaped me.”

* * *

Ivo’s miracle drug doesn’t work. Slade dies on the floor of the submarine. He tells Shado he loves her, teases Oliver that he looks like someone’s about to die, then starts bleeding red tears and convulses to death.

Oliver feels like someone just punched a hole through his chest. It is, in some ways, worse than when his father died. Because Robert was his father and it had been his choice and sacrifice to die for Oliver, and awful as it was, it made a twisted sort of sense.

Losing Slade makes _no_ kind of sense.  

Slade was meant to be there. They were meant to get off the island with Shado, and go home and let Oliver’s mother throw a lavish wedding for them, and see their kid’s first steps. Slade was supposed to horrify Moira and gently tease Thea and glare menacingly at Tommy. He was supposed to help Shado bully Oliver into keeping shape and insist on not living in the mansion and bitch as he struggled with Chinese because as good as he was at most things he really was terrible with languages…

That was all supposed to happen, and now Slade’s body is cooling on the floor of submarine, and nothing makes any sense anymore. He’d never even told Oliver he loved him. ( _Oliver never had the chance to say it back_ ).

Oliver can barely make himself care when Ivo’s men burst in.

He starts caring again very quickly outside when Ivo points a gun at Sara and Shado.

“Choose,” Ivo says.

Oliver shakes his head. He can’t – he just lost Slade – he can’t lose anyone else.

“No.”

“Choose, or both of them die." 

Oliver looks at them; at Sara, who he’s known his whole life but who he feels he’s only just getting to know. At Shado, his Moiety sister, who makes him want to be a better person. Slade’s other lover. The other corner of their broken, incomplete sedoretu. The woman he’d committed to love and cherish as a sister, even if Slade had never looked at him as anything more than a friend and a convenient lover. 

“Shado lives,” he forces out, and wills himself not to look at Sara. 

From the flicker of frustration on Ivo’s face, Oliver realises that Ivo was expecting a different answer.

“Too bad,” he says, swiveling the gun toward Shado.

“She’s pregnant!” Oliver blurts out. “She’s pregnant, okay! _Don’t_!”

He doesn’t believe it will work – a sadist like Ivo is hardly going to let a little detail like that get in his way – but miraculously Ivo pauses. He lowers the gun and kneels to touch Shado’s stomach through the baggy shirt, ignoring how she flinches from him. He finds what Oliver already knew was under there; the first gentle swell of pregnancy. Ivo smiles at her, all anger gone. “This is just an island of delights,” he says. “I can think of so many experiments for this. You’re going to be very useful.”

Shado’s face is frozen, Sara’s eyes are huge and Oliver realizes what a stupid, stupid thing he’d done. He’s killed Shado but slower. He should have just let Ivo shoot her and get it over with. 

“Please,” Sara is saying. “Ivo, just let us go. We can’t do anything to you–”

That’s when Slade arrives, alive and super-strong and roaring furious.

For once, miracles do happen.  

* * *

Afterwards, when Slade frees them, Oliver kisses him.

“I love you,” he says, not thinking anything except Slade is here, alive, in his arms.

Slade stills, an odd expression on his face, and Oliver starts to verbally back-pedal.

“I mean–”

Slade catches his shirt and drags him back into a rough kiss.

“Took you long enough,” he rasps.

“Huh?” Oliver’s brain is not working, still focused on getting his knees not to fold under him. “You knew?”

“You were skittish for weeks after I said it to Shado. If I even hinted at it to you, you’d have bolted for the trees and I didn't feel like going climbing.” Slade smirks at Shado. “It was her idea to let you come to me.”

“And I was right as usual,” she says smugly.

“I –” Oliver is not sure how to react to being played like that. “I hate you both.”

“No, you don’t.” Shado’s clearly teasing now. “You love us. Can’t take it back now.” Sara has helped her up, and is now keeping a supportive arm about her waist.

Sara has yet to look at Oliver and he's not sure what he's supposed to say to her, if anything. Even if Shado was part of his sedoretu and pregnant to boot, that doesn't erase the fact he chose her over Sara. He might have just destroyed something before it begun. 

"Sara -" He starts, but she interrupts. 

“Mirakuru is unstable.” She's looking at Slade when she says it. “We should be prepared." 

“For what, exactly?” Slade says coldly, and Oliver feels Slade's fingers tighten possessively about his shirt. It sends a shiver of unease through him. An Evening man and woman are not competition for each other, so why is Slade looking at Sara like she's a mark he wants to rub out?  

Shado makes an exasperated sound.

“Enough, both of you. We are all alive. That is what matters. We will work out the rest later.”

It takes a moment for Oliver to process her words, but once he does, he relaxes. They just came through disaster unscathed. They can handle anything else Ivo throws at them. Everything - Shado's baby, the weird tension between Sara and Slade, the silence between Sara and Oliver - it can all wait until tomorrow. Right now, Shado's safe, and Slade's alive and in love with him, and for once Oliver's feeling no urge to run. 

What he’s feeling, it’s almost like… hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the lyrics of Promises, by Frozen Ghost.


End file.
